Introduction: As COVID-19 develops around the world, numerous publications have described the psychiatric consequences of this pandemic. Although clinicians and healthcare systems are mainly focused on managing critically ill patients in an attempt to limit the number of casualties, psychiatric disease burden is increasing significantly. In this scenario, increased domestic violence and substance abuse have been recently reported. Objective: The objective of this study is to perform a systematic review of the literature regarding the consequences of severe acute respiratory syndrome-CoV-2 infection in terms of domestic violence and substance abuse, and compare incidences found. Materials and Methods: We conducted a literature search using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines. The keywords included “domestic violence,” “substance abuse” AND “COVID-19,” including multiple variants from December 2019 through June 2020. An extensive bibliographic search was carried out in different medical databases: Pubmed, EMBASE, LILACS, medRxiv, and bioRxiv. Titles and abstracts were reviewed according to the eligibility criteria. The risk of bias in the retrieved articles was assessed by the Joanna Briggs Institute's critical assessment instrument. Results: A total of 1505 papers were initially retrieved after consulting the selected databases. After browsing through titles and abstracts, 94 articles were initially included considering the predefined eligibility criteria. After a more detailed analysis, only six scientific articles remained in our selection. Of these, three were evaluating domestic violence against children, while the other three were about substance abuse. Conclusion: There is not enough evidence to support the concept that COVID-19 has led to an increase in the rates of domestic violence and substance abuse. The initial decrease in violence reports might not translate into a real reduction in incidence but in accessibility. Apparently, there has been a slight increase in alcohol and tobacco abuse, especially by regular users, which also requires confirmatory studies. The inconsistency between expert opinon articles and the actual published data could be a result of the limited time since the beginnging of the crisis, the fact that psychitaric patients have been chronically exposed to stressful situatons, and a possible stimulated increase in demand for psychatric consultations.

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The present study was designed to develop an animal model of hypertension and cardiac hypertrophy associated with obesity in female rats. Furthermore, we studied the involvement of the natriuretic peptide system in the mechanisms of these conditions. Obesity was induced in Wistar rats by a high fat diet and ovariectomy. The rats were divided into four groups: ovariectomized or sham-operated with high-fat diet and ovariectomized or sham-operated with control diet. After 24 weeks of diet, rats were killed, and their tissues were removed. Cardiac atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), clearance receptor (NPr-C) gene expression was determined by PCR. ANP concentrations were measured in plasma. Ovariectomized fat-fed rats (OF) showed increased body weight, visceral fat depot and blood pressure and decreased sodium excretion compared to other groups. Also, these rats showed higher heart-to-body weight and cell diameters of ventricular cardiomyocytes and lower cardiac ANP mRNA and plasma ANP than the control group. The adipocyte and renal NPr-C mRNA of OF rats were higher than the control group. These data showed that combined ovariectomy and high fat diet elicited obesity, hypertension and cardiac hypertrophy. These results suggest that the impairment of the natriuretic peptide system may be one of the mechanisms involved not only in development of hypertension but also in cardiac hypertrophy associated with obesity in ovariectomized rats.

Abstract:This study presents an inventory of the bird fauna of the Mata do Junco State Wildlife Refuge in Capela, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Sergipe. Monthly samples were collected between January 2011 and May 2012. Each 3-day sample was based on mistnetting (100 m) in two areas and the compilation of MacKinnon lists of 10 species. During the 17 months of the study period, the occurrence of 129 bird species belonging to 41 families was confirmed for the study area. In the mist-nets, a total of 469 individuals representing 58 species were captured in 3400 net-hours of sampling effort. A total of 100 MacKinnon lists were compiled, resulting in an inventory of 119 bird species. Eight of the species are endemic to Brazil, of which, five are restricted to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Three of the species are included in the IUCN Red List, at different levels of concern. Overall, the results of the study indicate that the Mata do Junco represents an important area for the protection of the region's avian fauna and the habitats they rely on.

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